Congress Renews Attack on Great Nicobar Project

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Thursday shared a booklet of his years of opposition to the Great Nicobar Island Project, reiterating his argument that the Centre's mega infrastructure initiative is an “onward march to environmental disaster”.

Anthology of Objections

Ramesh shared a curated selection of his social media posts, parliamentary speeches and official letters addresses to Union Ministers, as well as their replies that he had made public on X. The Prime Minister was clear that there will be many more such public gatherings as he heads towards environmental disaster on Great Nicobar, Ramesh said.

He referred on one hand to five petitions pending before the Calcutta High Court on the grounds that the notifications under the Eco Sensitive Zone Notification 2020, Forest Rights Act 2006 and Coastal Zone Regulation Notification 2019 violated the property rights of the locals, and on the other hand to a National Green Tribunal order issued on February 16, 2026, which challenged the forest land acquisition by the Forest Administration. “The country's environmental conscience is being put to the test,” he stated.

Scale of the Project

The project, whose total cost is estimated at ₹72,000 crore, proposes to develop Great Nicobar into a maritime and logistics hub, include setting up of 14.2 million twenty-foot equivalent unit International Container Transhipment Terminal, a 4,000 peak-hour passengers International Airport (Greenfield) and a 450 MVA power plant based on the combination of gas and solar.

Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi had raised the issue of cutting 15 million trees and encroaching on land of the reclusive Shompen tribal, which he had visited on the island in June, as "Green versus Greed". Ramesh has highlighted threats to marine life and habitats, such as coral reef and endangered leatherback sea turtle.

Government's Defence

The Centre has stated that the project will benefit India's access to foreign transshipment ports as the island is located within 40 nautical miles of the East-West shipping route and it would help meet strategic and national security requirements. Officials cite compensatory afforestation and environmental protection assurances approved in an Environmental Impact Assessment procedure that allow development to go hand in hand with conservation.

In 2021, an assessment was made by an anthropologist, Dr Visvajit Pandya, who had gathered video testimonies of local opposition to the project, a fact disputed by the government.